Odegaard tells Arsenal to 'move on' after Fleetwood Carabao Cup exit

Martin Odegaard has urged Arsenal to pick themselves up quickly after a chastening Carabao Cup exit at Fleetwood Town, with Liverpool waiting at Anfield this weekend.

The Arsenal captain came off the bench at half time and helped inspire a leveller through Viktor Gyokeres, but it was not enough to prevent a fourth round defeat to the League One side. Speaking after the game, Odegaard said: “We can't feel sorry for ourselves. We need to move on, we have a big game at the weekend, so bouncing back at the weekend is all we can do now. Massive thanks to the fans again for travelling, it's a long journey, just thank you, and sorry for the result.”

The scale of the upset was underlined by a reported £1.15billion gap in squad value between the two clubs, said to be the biggest ever gulf between opponents in the competition's history, according to football.london.

Odegaard: 'Frustrating, but credit to Fleetwood'

Odegaard was clear that Arsenal had nobody but themselves to blame for the result, even while acknowledging the Fleetwood performance. “It's very frustrating to go out. Obviously, the way we've played was not up to the level. We need to do much, much better than we did today,” he said.

He continued: “Frustrating, but congratulations to Fleetwood and we look forward to the next game already and bounce back. They did well so we have to give them credit, but I think today was about us not being on our level, we need to do better. I thought we improved during the game, but again, we need to step up even more, so that's a shame.”

Fleetwood goalkeeper Jay Lynch added that Arsenal's players declined to swap shirts after the final whistle. “It's obviously such a huge moment for us and all the fans ran on, no one actually got chance to speak to them. I think the gaffer spoke to their gaffer briefly, but because of all the fans we didn't actually get a chance to ask for shirts or even speak to them or anything, to be honest. They didn't take it well, let's put it that way,” Lynch said.

Arteta praises Fleetwood despite the result

Mikel Arteta was also complimentary of the hosts after the game. “First of all, congratulations to Fleetwood because they are through. In the manner that they've done it, the atmosphere they've created, I have nothing to fault the players for in terms of their attitude, application, the intensity that they put in throughout the game,” he said.

Arteta pointed to Arsenal's failure to convert their dominance into goals as the key issue. “When you are that superior, you give nothing to the opponent apart from the first action that we defended so poorly and we conceded the goal. And you generate so many situations, actions, volume of shots and chances in the opposition box. You have to score three, four or five and then you capitalise on that and you see the difference in the game. If you don't, then there are no margins and that's the reality.”

Attention now turns to Sunday's trip to Anfield, where Arsenal will look to respond to the setback against Liverpool.